Second Hard Drive Doesn't Show Up

[AGrocker]

I just built a computer and I have a 64GB Crucial M4 SSD as my primary drive and a 500GB WD Caviar Blue as my secondary drive. The issue is that Windows 7 doesn't recognize the WD Caviar Blue, only the SSD. Both the BIOS and the Device Manager recognize the WD Hard Drive it just doesn't show up in Windows 7.

 

[ignatzatsonic]

Does it show up in Disk Management?? Can you assign a drive letter to it there?

 

[AGrocker]

Im going to try to do that right now

 

[AGrocker]

It's actually not in there. I'll post a picture of my disk management then you analyze it.

 

[DeaconFrost]

It needs to be formatted and then assigned a drive letter. It looks like you may have the SATA ports reversed as well, since the installer picked up the WD drive before your SSD.

 

[AGrocker]

What do you mean by the SATA ports? They are both plugged innto SATA 6GB's sockets as they're both SATA 6GB's drives.

 

[ignatzatsonic]

Not sure how you got that 100 MB E partition. I'm guessing you had the 500 GB drive plugged in when you installed Windows onto the SSD??

I thought you meant you couldn't see the drive at all. Looks like it there OK and just needs to be formatted as the Deacon says.

 

[AGrocker]

The 100MB partition is from the 500GB drive it's the system file partition. BUt how do I format the drive. There isn't that option...

 

[ignatzatsonic]

The SATA port thing probably doesn't matter, but you might swap cables on two ports you are using so that the SSD shows up first as drive 0 rather than drive 1. As I say, it may not matter. I have had a system running with the OS partition as drive 1 for years with no issues.

 

[AGrocker]

So seeing my disk management, what would you say to do?

 

[DeaconFrost]

You may have them reversed in order...meaning the WD drive could be in Port 0 and the SSD could be in Port 1.

 

[ignatzatsonic]

I'd want to get rid of that 100 MB E partition on the spinning drive. No need for it.

So I'd shut down and disconnect the spinning drive. Then I would plug the SSD into port 0 on the motherboard (the port that the spinning drive is now connected to.


Then I would reinstall Windows with the spinning drive disconnected. Then reconnect the spinning drive when you are done.

There is probably a simpler way to get rid of that E partition on the spinning drive, but it only takes a half hour or so to reinstall Windows and I'd guess you don't have much time invested on it yet--your SSD probably just has a bare install with no or few apps installed.

 

[DeaconFrost]

You may not be able to safely delete the E drive, but for the rest of the drive, you should be able to right click on the Unallocated portion and create the partition you want.